SEO For Blogs – How Do You Acquire Backlinks?

Thursday, December 25th, 2008 newcorridor

We covered the basics of off-page optimization in the previous post “SEO For Blogs – Off-Page Optimization“. In this next post, we’ll explore how you go about acquiring backlinks.

So how do you actually get backlinks placed on other websites?

OK, the importance of backlinks is starting to make sense. But how are you supposed to get other websites to put these backlinks on their pages, and more important, include your keywords in the link text? That really is the million dollar question.

Here’s a short list of backlink opportunities.

Natural one-way link: Someone finds your blog, likes what you have to say, and puts a link on one of their pages referring back to your site. These merit-based, freely-volunteered links are the most natural form of one-way backlink most favored by the search engines. They exist purely as a popular vote in your favor. However, you are at the mercy of the other website owner to include the keyword you are after in the link text. Can be hit or miss, unfortunately.
Solicited one-way link: You ask another website to place your link on their website. And you supply the keyword/link text you would like them to use. This gives you more control over the link text and keywords associated with the link. Finding websites to provide backlinks in this manner is a popular and often successful link building campaign approach.The advantage to the other website is an opportunity to point their readers to a valuable, on-target and relevant resource. For example, perhaps you maintain a useful list or information resource on your website that people want to know about. Other websites will want to link to that information.

Keep in mind, webmasters and publishers of websites should be familiar with the importance of backlinks and how the value of the web is enhanced by providing users access to information they are after (sometimes, you may have to remind them). These informed webmasters will be more inclined to help you with a backlink if your website enhances their credibility with their readership.

You may have to contact a number of webmasters before you find some takers. Of course, the websites you are soliciting for backlinks will visit your website and you want them to like what they see. It goes without saying, if you want someone else to link back to your website, you need to produce a quality website, with good, on-theme relevant content. That’s only fair, right?
Link exchange: Here’s how link exchange works; “I’ll put a link to your website on my website if you’ll do the same for me”. Two-way link exchange was more popular several years ago, but the search engines tend to see through this more artificial linking arrangement today. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t refuse a decent two-way link exchange with another website or blog that exhibits good quality and on-topic relevance.
Buy Links: You can actually buy a link from a high page-ranking website. This is a bit mercenary, and not considered as meaningful by the search engines as more naturally acquired backlinks. Purchasing a link from a high page rank website can work, but be careful, Google may penalize you for this.Typically, you would buy the link for one or two months to help a new site get indexed and established. You can expect to pay as much as $200 or more for a backlink on a well established high page rank site.
Article marketing: You write and submit articles to authoritative article directories like ezinearticles.com. At the bottom of the article, in the author’s resource box, you can include a link back to your website or blog and you control the keywords you place in the link text.Other websites looking for new content will pickup your articles from these article directories and publish on their website.
Part of the implied article marketing protocol is that they need to preserve your author’s resource box when they publish your article on their site. This doesn’t always happen, and plagiarism does take place, but in spite of any pitfalls, article marketing is one of the most effective, time tested methods to acquire a nice supply of relevant backlinks over time.

Good articles (relevant content that people want to read), can be viral in nature when other websites and blogs, who are looking for good content, pickup your articles and publish on their websites. Consider this a form of syndication that doesn’t cost you anything other than your time (not that your time isn’t valuable).
Forums: Post comments on discussion forums that are related to your subject and theme. In the signature line of your forum post, you can put a link back to your website if the forum permits. And you control the link text.
Don’t SPAM forums just to acquire backlinks. You need to participate in the conversation and add value. If you are blatant and mercenary about acquiring backlinks, you’ll likely be banished by the forum administrator.

How do you find discussion forums related to your subject? Use Google and enter the search term “yoursubject forums” and substitute yoursubject with your actual subject of interest.
Social bookmarking: You can vote for your own website by submitting a bookmark on popular bookmarking sites such as digg or propeller.com. A typical bookmark submission includes a brief title, description, category, tags and URL. The URL link itself does not generally include link text so your opportunity to associate keywords with the link lies in the other areas of the bookmark including the description, title, tags, etc.
The search engines have great affinity for the bookmarking sites, so even a few well placed bookmarks of your own can bring you backlink benefit. Remember, search engines reward sites that consistently provide fresh, new content. The social bookmarking sites, with many thousands of new bookmarks submitted every day, appear to the search engines as content factories on steroids.

Of course, the bookmarking sites discourage users from only submitting bookmarks for their own websites and blogs. That’s too self-serving and would defeat the purpose and intention of these popular voting platforms. As with any of your marketing activities, do not SPAM! Spamming the bookmarking sites will never work in your favor. Submitting a few of your own sites is acceptable as long as the majority of your bookmark submissions are for sites other than your own.

You’ll also want to encourage others (your visitors and readers) to bookmark your pages, posts and content. Same concept, if you’re providing great content and useful information, your readers will want to tell others about it. That’s the purpose of the “Share and Enjoy” links you see below.
Self-Publishing Web 2.0 Sites: There are several excellent sites that enable you to easily create your own pages. At self-publishing Web 2.0 properties such as squidoo.com and hubpages.com you can easily put together niche targeted pages that leverage current social media and user interactive features. Use these as satellite pages or outposts to your main website or blog. Your pages on Squidoo (a page is called a lens on Squidoo) and Hubpages can rank very well and quickly on the search engines. Most important, you can create your own backlinks on these sites and have full control over the link text.

These are some of the best opportunities to acquire the all-important backlinks critical for higher search engine ranking. Choose a few of these strategies and make them a regular part of your link building campaign.

Acquiring backlinks is not a one-shot project. Marketing your website is an ongoing process, and for best results, you’ll want to attend to some aspect of your link building campaign on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Over time, the search engines will reward you for your efforts.

Share and Enjoy: